If you believe Bitcoin is a pyramid scheme, which is not true, the rest of your analysis is equally suspect.

Bitcoin PRICING in DOLLARS has been a pyramid scheme dependent completely on the influx of dollars. Bitcoin ecosystem itself generates roughly zero dollars in revenue, so any increase in price is based entirely on expecting an increase in fresh dollars. Doubly so when you consider the BTC supply a slightly increasing constant.

Faith in current and expectation of future price is most of the valuation, in other words. It doesn't get more pyramid than this.

Bitcoin as a service and a commodity is not a pyramid scheme, but that has little to do with its current valuation in dollars. I absolutely believe the bitcoin network will survive and provide ever increasing value long term (and by that I mean 10+ years), but I have far less confidence about the short term speculative $/BTC outlook.

If you believe Bitcoin is a pyramid scheme, which is not true, the rest of your analysis is equally suspect.

Bitcoin PRICING in DOLLARS has been a pyramid scheme dependent completely on the influx of dollars. Bitcoin ecosystem itself generates roughly zero dollars in revenue, so any increase in price is based entirely on expecting an increase in fresh dollars. Doubly so when you consider the BTC supply a slightly increasing constant.

Faith in current and expectation of future price is most of the valuation, in other words. It doesn't get more pyramid than this.

Bitcoin as a service and a commodity is not a pyramid scheme, but that has little to do with its current valuation in dollars. I absolutely believe the bitcoin network will survive and provide ever increasing value long term (and by that I mean 10+ years), but I have far less confidence about the short term speculative $/BTC outlook.

Yes, but you could say the same for the US dollar, Euro, Swiss Franc, Yen... Any currency is, at its most basic, a pyramid scheme whereby the greater and more general the agreement between the parties as to the value of the currency, the higher that value will be.

The service aspect of bitcoin takes this currency one step beyond those others. Its uncounterfeitability takes it another step. Its decentralized nature yet another... Its long-term deflationary nature yet another...

Because the economy is so small, this artificial spike from speculation was massive. Unless BTC goes under 3 dollars I'm really not expecting it to hit zero. I am expecting it to balance out at 4-6 dollar range range because that is what I feel may have been a natural amount of growth without the speculative spike. If it settles higher than that then I think Bitcoin will have earned a worthwhile amount of faithful adopters from this little fiasco.

Yes, but you could say the same for the US dollar, Euro, Swiss Franc, Yen... Any currency is, at its most basic, a pyramid scheme whereby the greater and more general the agreement between the parties as to the value of the currency, the higher that value will be.

Therein being the big difference. All of those are currencies. Entire economies accept them as a medium of exchange. You can run a business without ever involving a different currency.

The current bitcoin ecosystem is nascent, you can hardly operate anything but a self-sufficient business and accept bitcoin as your sole compensation. Anything more involved than than that will *require* converting bitcoin into a currency first by your definition increasing the value of that currency and decreasing that of bitcoin. There are also conversion costs and fees.

Another way to look at it: a "pyramid" tied to expected sustainable growth is not a pyramid at all. That's why many currencies have not become defunct, and most pyramids have.

Yet another way of looking at things: as of right this moment bitcoin is a value subtract. Transactions using bitcoin cost more and increase overall risk. Yes, shifting the chargeback risk from merchants to customers is valuable -- but only for merchants. Customers should see it as a negative, so the end result is a wash. Since nobody is lining up to pay for this service that I can see the valuation is purely through influx of fresh meat.

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The service aspect of bitcoin takes this currency one step beyond those others. Its uncounterfeitability takes it another step. Its decentralized nature yet another... Its long-term deflationary nature yet another...

All of this is a potential long term. It takes more effort to use bitcoin, negating the service aspect. Irreversible fraud is just as harmful as simply creating counterfeit coins. Decentralized has advantages and disadvatages. While deflationary long term it's currently inflating at 7200/7000000 every 10 days.

Yes, shifting the chargeback risk from merchants to customers is valuable -- but only for merchants. Customers should see it as a negative, so the end result is a wash. Since nobody is lining up to pay for this service that I can see the valuation is purely through influx of fresh meat.

Shifting the risk is valuable for the customer as well. If one party to a contract is afraid the other party will default, that makes them more reluctant to enter into the contract. To induce them to enter against the reluctance, the other party must make a greater offer.

Imagine you want bitcoins and you have PayPal. By your logic, the fact that PayPal lets you reverse the transaction, putting all the risk on the other party, should be great for you. But in fact, it's awful for you. Because you can easily cheat the other party, there won't be any other party. You would have to offer someone a massive inducement to take that risk, that is, you would have to pay extra for the extra risk you present.

Because bitcoins remove the chargeback risk, the customer need not pay the merchant to take that risk, saving the customer money.

As a general rule, anything that makes an agreement more beneficial to either party benefits both parties. The party that doesn't benefit directly can make a slightly worse offer and the other party will still benefit from the contract, thus forcing a split of the benefit.

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In the end, the price decline may be what saves Bitcoin. When I first arrived on these forums some of the claims were absolutely ridiculous. 1 Bitcoin would eventually buy a car, be worth X times the amount of gold, be worth $100,000+ PER COIN. I wish I were exaggerating, but I'm not. Basically there were too many people who thought Bitcoin was their get rich quick scheme because of the massive appreciation.

This price decline should help return a lot of those people to reality. Not to say there is no profitability in Bitcoin but I think profits are in building the infrastructure, not hording coins and crossing your fingers. But building an infrastructure takes effort. Bitcoin isn't going anywhere if you just sit on your hands, at least that lesson is being echoed in the markets now.

In the end, the price decline may be what saves Bitcoin. When I first arrived on these forums some of the claims were absolutely ridiculous. 1 Bitcoin would eventually buy a car, be worth X times the amount of gold, be worth $100,000+ PER COIN. I wish I were exaggerating, but I'm not. Basically there were too many people who thought Bitcoin was their get rich quick scheme because of the massive appreciation.

This price decline should help return a lot of those people to reality. Not to say there is no profitability in Bitcoin but I think profits are in building the infrastructure, not hording coins and crossing your fingers. But building an infrastructure takes effort. Bitcoin isn't going anywhere if you just sit on your hands, at least that lesson is being echoed in the markets now.

True. Bitcoin needs more commerce, not more day traders.

And I still stand by my prediction of $1,000,000+ for a BTC in 10 to 50 years.

My in-depth knowledge of economics is quite lacking, but I don't think the foretold bitcoin doomsday will emerge any time soon.

Yes, bitcoin seems to have experienced a significant bubble, but what is happening now - to me at least, seems more like a market correction rather than an inevitable crash. $30 per btc was insane, and people who bought at that level deserve to have lost money as they should have done some basic math and realized that the cost of production was far far lower than what they were paying.

The price is falling, yes. Am I worried? No! In fact I am glad. Because bitcoin will not be acceptable for use as a currency until it's true value is known by the markets and stabilizes. Until then, it is hugely overbought, and that is good for nobody except n00b miners who spent all their money on mining gear.

Well, this is a reality check, and the way I see it is that the price will continue to fall until it drops below the mining cost level. After that it should go up again due to reduced supply (i.e. a reduction in the number of miners, or the hoarding of coin). Once all the strike-it-rich kiddies throw their failed mining rigs in the trash, it will only be professional miners left who have large resources available to them and are able to cut-costs and still remain profitable.

The true value of bitcoin will become established over the long term. It's dollar-value should stay pretty much static, with small volatility, after this... pegged of course to the cost of mining, which is proportional to the cost of electricity and computer components. It's value as a currency in it's own regard should hopefully increase as more and more people learn about it and begin to understand and adopt it.

Of course, the bitcoin software will need some future renovation, but with the level of expertise I have seen at this forum, that won't be a problem.